Weekly Wrap | It's that time of the year when finals are in the air and next week they begin for the first time in season 2024 as the Upper Murray FNL finished their Home and Away season this week.
Being a four team competition means that all sides will feature in the finals, but that is little consolation for Corryong FNC who suffered a 252 point defeat to league leaders, the undefeated Cudgewa FNC this weekend and will have to front up to them again in the first round of finals action. The other match in the first round of finals will have 2nd placed Bullioh FNC face 3rd placed Tumbaraumba, also coincidentally faced each other in the last round of games, where Bullioh ran out 38 point winners. This upcoming weekend will also see the last round of Home and away matches take place in the Omeo & District FNL.
Last week we shared the end of a 16 year club v club losing streak in the Ovens and Murray FNL, well this week it’s a slightly different version of a club v club losing streak coming to end. In the Bendigo FNL, the Castlemaine FNL had never had the chance to sing the song to celebrate a victory on Strathfieldsaye FNC’s home ground until this weekend. This win breaks the Magpies run of 15 years of losses on The Storms home deck, spanning all the way back to when Strathfieldsaye FNC entered the Bendigo FNL in their debut year in 2009.
Importantly some more long standing losing streaks were also ended this week enabling three clubs to get on the board for the first time in 2024. A run of 16 straight defeats for the Geelong FNL bottom side St Albans FNC came to a halt when they beat 8th place Newtown Chilwell FNC by 10 points, 9.3 57 to 5.17 47. Up in the Tallangatta and District FNL, Dederang Mount Beauty FNC, watched on by their famous alumni former Saint and Hawk Ben McEvoy, ran riot in recording their first win for the year and in 14 games against Wahgunyah FNC. The 118 point win also enabled them to move off the bottom of the league ladder and move ahead of Wahgunyah FNC by percentage. While down in the Wimmera FNL a 22 point win to the Warrack Eagles FNC over Dimboola FNC ended their string of 12 consecutive defeats.
Some interesting scoring quirks took place over this weekend's round of matches. We had the most number of single digit scores recorded in a round by senior teams for the 2024 season, with 16 teams failing to score more than 10 points in their matches. This included 3 complete scoreless sides, with Allansford FNC in the Warrnambool & District FNL and two teams from the Outer East FNL - Division 1 in Yarra Glen FNC and Yarra Junction FNC all unable to register a single point in their games. While in the Loddon Valley FNL, two of their four games were decided by 67 points and the remaining two games margins were by 68 and 69 points respectively. We also had two of the seasons top 10 highest scored kicked this weekend where in the Picola and District FNL Tungamah FNC kicked 46.19 295 against the winless Yarroweyah FNC who could only manage 2 behinds, while in the Mininera & District FNL it was Penshurst FNC who amassed 42.33 285 to Moyston Willaura FNC’s 1.1 7.
In the aforementioned big wins, Tungamah FNC’s Lachy Thompson had a day out in front of goals kicking 18 goals. Also staying with big wins in the Mininera and District FNL, it was Tatyoon FNC’s Marcus Darmody who also kicked 18 in his side's 191 point defeat of Caramut FNC. Cudgewa FNC’s Guy Telford kicked 13 to finish the Upper Murray FNL season on 71 goals to take out the league award. Overall we have a new statewide league leader after 9 goals to Murchison Toolamba FNC’s James Lloyd moved him to 109 overall, one ahead of last week's leader, Strathmerton FNC’s Tim Looby who now has 108, sitting two ahead of Bridgewater FNC’s Lachlan Sharp in third place with 106 so far in 2024.
